In general, polysulfide resins find uses in any application requiring a strongly adhering surface coating or strong adhesion between materials. In aerospace manufacturing, polysulfide resins are used in a variety of applications, such as sealants for fuel tanks, wet-installed fasteners, formation of fillet and fay joints, and aero-smoothing at the wing-to-body joint. Polysulfide resins are also used as adhesives, sealants, coatings, and caulks in other applications such as building construction, manufacturing of automotive components, and fabrication of marine components. In a specific application, polysulfide resins are used as sealants for the formation of integral fuel tanks within, for example, portions of the wing assembly of airplanes or the fuselage of a rotorcraft. In these various applications, the resins currently used as adhesive and sealant materials generally cure relatively slowly via an oxidative process. For example, various polysulfide-based sealants in current use in aerospace applications cure at a rate that is on the order of days or hours rather than minutes. Slow cure rates for adhesives, sealants, coatings, and caulk tend to limit manufacturing throughput.
To achieve faster cure rates, various photopolymerizable resin materials have been proposed, but, in general, these materials have produced unsatisfactory results for reasons such as difficulty in photocuring thick films and/or inferior chemical and mechanical characteristics for intended end uses. Additionally, these photopolymerizable resins often have a short shelf life or are difficult to handle and process. It would be desirable to provide faster curing resin materials having similar (or improved) chemical and/or mechanical characteristics as compared to presently available polysulfide resins.